Conventional gas burning barbecues are constructed with cast iron walls supporting a grill on which food to be cooked is held, and beneath which a burner is positioned. Between the burner and the grill is a grate on which a layer of lava or other type of porous rock is supported as a buffer between the flame and food. Ceramic substitutes may be used in place of the lava rock. These rocks absorb grease and other drippings from meat being cooked on the grill to reduce and serve to provide even heating beneath the grill.
Many problems arise through the use of rocks as a buffer for such a system. The rocks may become unevenly distributed on the grate or provide irregular spacing through which the flame from the burner may be exposed directly to the grill, causing uneven heating of food on the grill. As well, when meat is being cooked on the grill, flare-ups often occur when drippings from the meat hit the burner and combust and flash back towards the cooking grill. These flare-ups may char or burn the food being cooked on the grill.
Kern U.S. Pat. No. 4,351,313 issued Sept. 28, 1982 describes and illustrates a molded refractory slab for positioning in a barbecue grill between the burner and the grill. The slab has a plurality of uniformly spaced bosses simulating coals projecting upwardly from the its top surface and an upwardly extending peripheral lip to contain grease and meat juices falling on the slab to prevent their dripping off the slab into the flame. While such a slab construction may distribute heat evenly beneath the cooking grill, it significantly obstructs the heat passing to the grill, essentially reducing the heating process to one of radiation once the slab has been sufficiently heated by the flame below. (In conventional grills, part of the heating occurs as a result of hot air, heated by the flames, rising to the cooking grill.)
Other patents of general background interest include U.S. Pat. No. 4,727,853 of Stephen et.al. issued Mar. 1, 1988 describing a plurality of inverted V-shaped bars acting as sear bars when placed between the grill and burner element of a barbecue by causing grease to evaporate while flowing across their inclined walls, and Canadian Pat. No. 807,390 of Rosa issued Mar. 4, 1969 which describes and illustrates a steak grill with a reversible gas-heated hot plate.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a flare reduction buffer system for barbecues which will replace conventional lava rocks and the like, and which will provide efficient, effective, even heating while reducing flare-ups.